A few obvious ones, but I'll go with the Iran story. We don't have the outcome yet, but surely it matters either way.
"Doesn't matter" is too strong, but VA-AG is certainly a combination of elements that give something far more attention than it deserves. I think it was Dave Hopkins who made the more general point on Tuesday that we tend to pay disproportionate attention to these off-year elections, and he's of course exactly right. Add to that an exciting, close election, and there you go.
What do you have? What do you think mattered this week?
Showing posts with label 2013 elections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2013 elections. Show all posts
Saturday, November 9, 2013
Friday, November 8, 2013
Read Stuff, You Should
Happy Birthday to Alfre Woodard, 61.
Good stuff:
1. Ezra Klein reviews Double Down and The Gamble.
2. Sean Trende breaks out a new explanation for the polling vs. results difference in VA-Gov.
3. While Mark Blumenthal and Ariel Edwards-Levy consider both that and other possibilities. I'm sticking with different switch-away from the Libertarian as my best guess, but I'll admit it's more speculative than solid.
4. And: State of the Parties! The papers are here. This is the quadrennial conference on US political parties in Akron that's always excellent. I'll continue retweeting stuff from there tomorrow; if I'm lucky, I'll get to some of the papers, too.
Good stuff:
1. Ezra Klein reviews Double Down and The Gamble.
2. Sean Trende breaks out a new explanation for the polling vs. results difference in VA-Gov.
3. While Mark Blumenthal and Ariel Edwards-Levy consider both that and other possibilities. I'm sticking with different switch-away from the Libertarian as my best guess, but I'll admit it's more speculative than solid.
4. And: State of the Parties! The papers are here. This is the quadrennial conference on US political parties in Akron that's always excellent. I'll continue retweeting stuff from there tomorrow; if I'm lucky, I'll get to some of the papers, too.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Read Stuff, You Should
Happy Birthday to Guy Sularz, 58
Want some good stuff?
1. Ed Kilgore makes the point I also made yesterday, but in more depth: yes, the "establishment" candidate won in AL-1, but the Tea Partier did well enough to keep the focus on primaries.
2. Kristen Soltis looks at the numbers carefully and it turns out my quick glance is probably correct: it was the Libertarian candidacy which accounts for the polling in VA-Gov.
3. Harry Enten looks at the exit polls. I agree with his main points for the most part, but one word of caution: be very careful about putting too much weight on exit poll numbers, especially for relatively small subsamples. It's really easy for them to be almost useless.
4. Seth Masket on two ballot measures in Colorado: one with a clear partisan pattern, one without.
5. And Elizabeth Warren and the social sciences, from Henry Farrell.
Want some good stuff?
1. Ed Kilgore makes the point I also made yesterday, but in more depth: yes, the "establishment" candidate won in AL-1, but the Tea Partier did well enough to keep the focus on primaries.
2. Kristen Soltis looks at the numbers carefully and it turns out my quick glance is probably correct: it was the Libertarian candidacy which accounts for the polling in VA-Gov.
3. Harry Enten looks at the exit polls. I agree with his main points for the most part, but one word of caution: be very careful about putting too much weight on exit poll numbers, especially for relatively small subsamples. It's really easy for them to be almost useless.
4. Seth Masket on two ballot measures in Colorado: one with a clear partisan pattern, one without.
5. And Elizabeth Warren and the social sciences, from Henry Farrell.
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
PostElection: Winners
Even putting aside the bizarre idea that Republicans "won" Virginia because they didn't lose by as much as the polls predicted...it was about as mixed an election day as possible, wasn't it?
* Democrats win! After all the two biggest pickups on the day were VA-Gov and NYC Mayor, both to the Democrats.
* Republicans win! Context matters. Yes, Republicans lost VA-Gov, but winning a landslide in New Jersey Governor is a big deal in a solidly Democratic state, more so than losing by a bit in a swing state.
* Mainstream conservatives win! Chris Christie massively outperforms GOP par in NJ-Gov, while Tea Party friendly Ken Cuccinelli slightly underperforms GOP par in VA-Gov. Meanwhile, the mainstream conservative beats the Tea Party candidate in AL-1.
* Tea Party wins! Yes, the conservative won in AL-1. But not by much, and with almost everything on his side except for the Tea Party/"establishment" split. If the big goal of Tea Party primary challenges is keeping Republicans in Congress terrified: mission accomplished.
* Liberals win! New York City is a big deal, and it now has a very liberal mayor. That's one new liberal who, today, has a major national platform.
The thing is: all of these are correct. Add into the mix mostly status-quo results in the NJ and VA legislature, and "muddle" looks like a reasonable assessment.
Standard warning: do not assume that yesterday's results even hint at anything about the 2014 general elections, let alone 2016. Ignore anything that even hints at it. These elections are important because of and to the extent to which New Jersey and Virginia state elections and the other elections contested yesterday are important. The main exception, I think, is the AL-1 GOP runoff, which certainly may have an effect on other elections.
Oh, and the other thing? At the end of the day, what matters in almost all of these cases is who won, not how it's interpreted. So if the press buys into some of these stories and not others, it's just not a big deal. Spin can matter, but usually reality matters a lot more.
* Democrats win! After all the two biggest pickups on the day were VA-Gov and NYC Mayor, both to the Democrats.
* Republicans win! Context matters. Yes, Republicans lost VA-Gov, but winning a landslide in New Jersey Governor is a big deal in a solidly Democratic state, more so than losing by a bit in a swing state.
* Mainstream conservatives win! Chris Christie massively outperforms GOP par in NJ-Gov, while Tea Party friendly Ken Cuccinelli slightly underperforms GOP par in VA-Gov. Meanwhile, the mainstream conservative beats the Tea Party candidate in AL-1.
* Tea Party wins! Yes, the conservative won in AL-1. But not by much, and with almost everything on his side except for the Tea Party/"establishment" split. If the big goal of Tea Party primary challenges is keeping Republicans in Congress terrified: mission accomplished.
* Liberals win! New York City is a big deal, and it now has a very liberal mayor. That's one new liberal who, today, has a major national platform.
The thing is: all of these are correct. Add into the mix mostly status-quo results in the NJ and VA legislature, and "muddle" looks like a reasonable assessment.
Standard warning: do not assume that yesterday's results even hint at anything about the 2014 general elections, let alone 2016. Ignore anything that even hints at it. These elections are important because of and to the extent to which New Jersey and Virginia state elections and the other elections contested yesterday are important. The main exception, I think, is the AL-1 GOP runoff, which certainly may have an effect on other elections.
Oh, and the other thing? At the end of the day, what matters in almost all of these cases is who won, not how it's interpreted. So if the press buys into some of these stories and not others, it's just not a big deal. Spin can matter, but usually reality matters a lot more.
PostElection: Virginia Governor
I'm a bit late to this, and despite that I haven't come close to reading everything that people have written so I'm not sure whether people have covered this or not, but that disclaimer aside:
The interpretation of the Virginia governor's race, with Terry McAuliffe defeating Ken Cuccinelli by (based on results so far) 2.5 percentage points, appears to be dominated by questions about why it's so close -- rather than questions about why McAuliffe won.
That's because of two things. One is because polls had McAuliffe with a bigger lead; it was estimated at 7.2% by HuffPollster, which is pretty much the gold standard for these things. So there's certainly something to be explained about the difference between the polling and the actual results.
The other is the order in which the votes were counted. Republican precincts reported early -- which is the normal pattern in Virginia, as veteran election-watchers were saying all last night -- and so Cuccinelli actually was leading until very late in the counting. It's impossible to prove exactly how this played out, but I'm fairly confident that if the votes had been counted in the opposite way, with McAuliffe getting out to a big lead, settling down for most of the night into the 5-7% range, and then Cuccinelli catching up quite a bit after the networks had called the race and the candidates had given their speeches, that the election would have been perceived as a much more solid win.
Getting back to the first step here: the legitimate question here about the difference between the polls and the results is not the same question as the question of who did well and why. Which is why I agree with Greg Sargent and Ezra Klein that it's a bit bizarre to call the election a win for ACA foes.
As far as the polling shift, here's my two cents that I'd begin with. Compared with the HuffPollster estimate, the actual results (so far -- remember that they sometimes shift for several days after an election) are the following changes:
McAuliffe + 2.7%
Cuccinelli + 7.4%
Sarvis - 2.5%
If I'm reading the exit polls correctly, most voters who supported the Libertarian Party candidate would have supported McAuliffe in a two-candidate race. I haven't looked into the details of the pre-election polls, but at least one strong possibility is that conservative libertarians (or perhaps conservatives who just didn't like the Republican candidate) came home, while liberals did not. That certainly could have something to do with the themes candidates campaigned on in the final days, but I'd suggest that Ron Paul's high-profile appearance for Cuccinelli is a more likely suspect. And then I'd also guess, and this is a bit more speculative, that Democrats were more likely to trust the polling (and therefore assume that it was safe to vote against a candidate they preferred to win) than Republicans (who, believing it was a close race, came home even if they weren't thrilled about it).
One more thing. While I was checking that one in the exit polls, I noticed something that I did not expect at all: outgoing Republican governor Bob McDonnell had a pretty solid 52% approval rating among exit polled voters. If our interest is in who won and why -- and not in the real but less interesting question about the polling -- then that suggests that Virginia was in fact probably ready to elect a Republican, and that the net effect of the candidates and campaigns probably favored McAuliffe, not Cuccinelli. Which is certainly long way from nailing down the effect of any specific issue, of course, but does suggest that a focus on "why was it so close" really is a backwards way of trying to understand this election.
The interpretation of the Virginia governor's race, with Terry McAuliffe defeating Ken Cuccinelli by (based on results so far) 2.5 percentage points, appears to be dominated by questions about why it's so close -- rather than questions about why McAuliffe won.
That's because of two things. One is because polls had McAuliffe with a bigger lead; it was estimated at 7.2% by HuffPollster, which is pretty much the gold standard for these things. So there's certainly something to be explained about the difference between the polling and the actual results.
The other is the order in which the votes were counted. Republican precincts reported early -- which is the normal pattern in Virginia, as veteran election-watchers were saying all last night -- and so Cuccinelli actually was leading until very late in the counting. It's impossible to prove exactly how this played out, but I'm fairly confident that if the votes had been counted in the opposite way, with McAuliffe getting out to a big lead, settling down for most of the night into the 5-7% range, and then Cuccinelli catching up quite a bit after the networks had called the race and the candidates had given their speeches, that the election would have been perceived as a much more solid win.
Getting back to the first step here: the legitimate question here about the difference between the polls and the results is not the same question as the question of who did well and why. Which is why I agree with Greg Sargent and Ezra Klein that it's a bit bizarre to call the election a win for ACA foes.
As far as the polling shift, here's my two cents that I'd begin with. Compared with the HuffPollster estimate, the actual results (so far -- remember that they sometimes shift for several days after an election) are the following changes:
McAuliffe + 2.7%
Cuccinelli + 7.4%
Sarvis - 2.5%
If I'm reading the exit polls correctly, most voters who supported the Libertarian Party candidate would have supported McAuliffe in a two-candidate race. I haven't looked into the details of the pre-election polls, but at least one strong possibility is that conservative libertarians (or perhaps conservatives who just didn't like the Republican candidate) came home, while liberals did not. That certainly could have something to do with the themes candidates campaigned on in the final days, but I'd suggest that Ron Paul's high-profile appearance for Cuccinelli is a more likely suspect. And then I'd also guess, and this is a bit more speculative, that Democrats were more likely to trust the polling (and therefore assume that it was safe to vote against a candidate they preferred to win) than Republicans (who, believing it was a close race, came home even if they weren't thrilled about it).
One more thing. While I was checking that one in the exit polls, I noticed something that I did not expect at all: outgoing Republican governor Bob McDonnell had a pretty solid 52% approval rating among exit polled voters. If our interest is in who won and why -- and not in the real but less interesting question about the polling -- then that suggests that Virginia was in fact probably ready to elect a Republican, and that the net effect of the candidates and campaigns probably favored McAuliffe, not Cuccinelli. Which is certainly long way from nailing down the effect of any specific issue, of course, but does suggest that a focus on "why was it so close" really is a backwards way of trying to understand this election.
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Feeling Patriotic
(My standard Election Day post, edited as usual to bring it up to date)
I do love Election Day.
And even though it's an off year, it's still a good one, lots of great stories. In New York, someone gets a promotion to one of politic's greatest dead-end jobs; Boston gets a new mayor, too. We have a 2016 candidate getting something to brag about in New Jersey, and Democrats getting their own bragging rights in Virginia. The GOP run-off in AL-1 will determine whether John Boehner gets another vote for his conference -- or the Gohmert/Bachmann caucus gets one instead. There are even 15 recall elections today.
You know, it tend to mostly be interested in how small a portion of democracy is occupied by today. I think democracy is found in the complex workings of elites and activists within party networks, and in Congressional committee rooms, and in interactions within issue networks, and in White House showdowns between the president and a reluctant Senator...all those things, to me, at an intellectual level, are democracy just as much as today's events. But nothing beats the rituals of Election Day. Hey, I even like the annoying and useless "What Does It All Mean" stories, as long as I can restrict my intake enough. I love watching the spin. I love the weather stories, and the cheesy shots of the candidates voting, and the oh-so-careful anchors not revealing what they all know from the exit polls (As much as I think we should ignore them, I miss the leaked early exit polls from the pre-internet era, which made you feel like an insider if you heard them and a goof when they turned out to be phony. Now we mostly get the goof part). I'm one of those people who could easily do without the National Anthem, and the Pledge doesn't do much for me -- and I really dislike the Selig-imposed 7th inning GBA. But then today comes around, and I know that I'm a very patriotic citizen of the USA.
So, Happy Election Day, everyone! Vote early, vote often!
I do love Election Day.
And even though it's an off year, it's still a good one, lots of great stories. In New York, someone gets a promotion to one of politic's greatest dead-end jobs; Boston gets a new mayor, too. We have a 2016 candidate getting something to brag about in New Jersey, and Democrats getting their own bragging rights in Virginia. The GOP run-off in AL-1 will determine whether John Boehner gets another vote for his conference -- or the Gohmert/Bachmann caucus gets one instead. There are even 15 recall elections today.
You know, it tend to mostly be interested in how small a portion of democracy is occupied by today. I think democracy is found in the complex workings of elites and activists within party networks, and in Congressional committee rooms, and in interactions within issue networks, and in White House showdowns between the president and a reluctant Senator...all those things, to me, at an intellectual level, are democracy just as much as today's events. But nothing beats the rituals of Election Day. Hey, I even like the annoying and useless "What Does It All Mean" stories, as long as I can restrict my intake enough. I love watching the spin. I love the weather stories, and the cheesy shots of the candidates voting, and the oh-so-careful anchors not revealing what they all know from the exit polls (As much as I think we should ignore them, I miss the leaked early exit polls from the pre-internet era, which made you feel like an insider if you heard them and a goof when they turned out to be phony. Now we mostly get the goof part). I'm one of those people who could easily do without the National Anthem, and the Pledge doesn't do much for me -- and I really dislike the Selig-imposed 7th inning GBA. But then today comes around, and I know that I'm a very patriotic citizen of the USA.
So, Happy Election Day, everyone! Vote early, vote often!
Saturday, February 2, 2013
What Mattered This Week?
I'll kick it off with Scott Brown's decision not to run for MA-Senate. Not a huge surprise, but it certainly could have gone the other way...and his decision probably moves the seat from about a 40% chance for a GOP win to around a 10% chance, maybe less.
(And, yes, it's also a setback for the younger Senate. Don't want to forget that part of it).
Congressional confirmation hearings are overrated as far as their effects on confirmation are concerned. Hagel may or may not be confirmed, but I very much doubt that his mediocre performance will wind up mattering.
What else? What do you think mattered this week?
(And, yes, it's also a setback for the younger Senate. Don't want to forget that part of it).
Congressional confirmation hearings are overrated as far as their effects on confirmation are concerned. Hagel may or may not be confirmed, but I very much doubt that his mediocre performance will wind up mattering.
What else? What do you think mattered this week?
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Read Stuff, You Should
Happy Birthday to Albert Pujols, 33. He's so good that he was able to do something that only the Panda and a couple of other guys could do.
And just a little good stuff:
1. Barack Obama doesn't take questions from the press corps very often. Donovan Slack has the story, with numbers from Martha Kumar.
2. Really good reporting and analysis from David S. Bernstein (yeah, I know, but I wouldn't say it if it wasn't true) on field-clearing and the Massachusetts Democrats.
3. An nice slideshow explaining filibusters, from Newsbound. I wish they would put less emphasis on "silent," and also wish that they didn't treat cloture votes as the One True Measure of filibusters, but still it's nice work.
And just a little good stuff:
1. Barack Obama doesn't take questions from the press corps very often. Donovan Slack has the story, with numbers from Martha Kumar.
2. Really good reporting and analysis from David S. Bernstein (yeah, I know, but I wouldn't say it if it wasn't true) on field-clearing and the Massachusetts Democrats.
3. An nice slideshow explaining filibusters, from Newsbound. I wish they would put less emphasis on "silent," and also wish that they didn't treat cloture votes as the One True Measure of filibusters, but still it's nice work.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Solis Out
Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis announced just now that she's leaving the administration.
Barack Obama is going to be under some pressure on the demographic characteristics of her replacement; with Jack Lew, John Kerry, and Chuck Hagel getting the last three nominations, Democratic constituencies will be expecting women to fill upcoming vacancies. However (and as I've been saying for a week now on twitter), there's an opportunity here for him to solve a problem that the Kerry appointment created. The Democratic primary in Massachusetts could easily wind up selecting social conservative Member of the House Stephen Lynch, which many mainstream liberals would see as a major disaster.
With Lynch presumably running, liberals have a strong incentive to rally behind Ed Markey, the frontrunner, to avoid a split field and the chance Lynch could win with a relatively small percentage of the vote. But they may not want to do that, for a variety of reasons. Lynch is, however, strongly supported by labor. Obama could pluck him out of the House and make him Secretary of Labor, thus solving the problem entirely, and allowing a safe free-for-all in the Senate special election primary.
On the other hand...maybe the Massachusetts legislature should just change the rules and institute a new rule that special Senate election primaries need a 50% threshold, and require a runoff if no one reaches it. That would work, too! And we all know that Massachusetts Democrats don't mind making up the rules as they go along on these things.
And the gender imbalance? A lot better to take care of that with a woman at White House Chief of Staff than the minor leagues of the cabinet. Plus, there's always Commerce.
Barack Obama is going to be under some pressure on the demographic characteristics of her replacement; with Jack Lew, John Kerry, and Chuck Hagel getting the last three nominations, Democratic constituencies will be expecting women to fill upcoming vacancies. However (and as I've been saying for a week now on twitter), there's an opportunity here for him to solve a problem that the Kerry appointment created. The Democratic primary in Massachusetts could easily wind up selecting social conservative Member of the House Stephen Lynch, which many mainstream liberals would see as a major disaster.
With Lynch presumably running, liberals have a strong incentive to rally behind Ed Markey, the frontrunner, to avoid a split field and the chance Lynch could win with a relatively small percentage of the vote. But they may not want to do that, for a variety of reasons. Lynch is, however, strongly supported by labor. Obama could pluck him out of the House and make him Secretary of Labor, thus solving the problem entirely, and allowing a safe free-for-all in the Senate special election primary.
On the other hand...maybe the Massachusetts legislature should just change the rules and institute a new rule that special Senate election primaries need a 50% threshold, and require a runoff if no one reaches it. That would work, too! And we all know that Massachusetts Democrats don't mind making up the rules as they go along on these things.
And the gender imbalance? A lot better to take care of that with a woman at White House Chief of Staff than the minor leagues of the cabinet. Plus, there's always Commerce.
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